Held at the Sandringham Yacht Club, with MC Jolene George, the 2026 awards night was a celebration of a massive ocean racing season. But more than that, looking back at the honour rolls, it was a reminder that ocean racing in Victoria is a continuous thread. The major racing championships highlighted how competitive the Victorian fleet has become, with established champions sharing space with fresh campaigns. The season runs across three core championships: the Offshore Championship, built from the long passages to Devonport, Hobart, King Island and Port Fairy; the Coastal Championship, contested over the three Coastal Sprints and the Apollo Bay race; and the Double-Handed Offshore Championship, which folds both coastal and offshore results together for boats racing short-handed. Together they chart a season that asks as much of a crew’s endurance as it does their tactics.

Coastal Champion — Cam McKenzie & Nigel Jones: Ginan continues to be the benchmark for consistency on the coastal sprint circuit. Cam McKenzie and Nigel Jones have sailed together since 1990, when a 21-year-old McKenzie joined Jones for his first offshore race — a partnership that’s since spanned ten Sydney to Hobarts before the pair bought their J/111, Ginan, together. This latest Coastal Championship title adds to a run of consecutive wins on the Victorian coastline, cementing their tactical chokehold on the circuit and a friendship built over more than three decades on the water.

Volunteer of the Year — Rik Head: A brilliant full-circle moment for the club. Rik Head was named Ocean Racer of the Year back in 2013; over a decade later, his tireless work behind the scenes earned him Volunteer of the Year, joining crucial club contributors like Neville Rose and Delma Dunoon. For years Rik has served as the club’s Incident Management Lead, the steady hand behind race-day safety, monitoring and supporting fleets through everything from Bass Strait crossings to coastal sprints. As fellow honouree Rosie Colahan put it, having worked alongside him since 2008, Rik has built “a legacy of great systems” in the emergency rescue space — the kind of quiet, expert groundwork that keeps the whole club sailing safely.

The future of the sport looks incredibly bright, with Shashi stepping into a legacy of exceptional young offshore talent, following in the footsteps of recent trailblazers like Clare Olding. Shashi has spent the past year getting more involved in the sport, including time aboard Faster Forward, the RYCV-campaigned Sydney 38, building the kind of hands-on offshore experience that’s shaping the next generation of sailors coming through the club.

Guest speaker Shevaun Bruland, President of Australian Sailing and the first woman to hold the role, brought a national perspective to the evening. Bruland’s path to the presidency includes two years as Vice President, five years on the board of Yachting South Australia (three as President), and ongoing roles with World Sailing’s Equipment Committee and Safety Commission. But her credibility on the night came as much from the water as the boardroom — an offshore and one-design sailor for decades, she’s also taken up kitefoil racing in recent years, the kind of restless curiosity that seems to define many of the sport’s most committed advocates. Her remarks tied together the personal and the institutional: the countless miles logged by sailors across the country, and the work still being done to grow the sport for the next generation. It was a reminder that behind every club trophy and every long ocean crossing sits a broader community effort to keep sailing accessible, safe, and thriving.